Hockey Night in Canada

Every general on the battlefield has a favored weapon. Napoleon had his artillery, Rommel had his panzers, even Steve Jobs has those black turtlenecks he wears at every single MacWorld. So as I venture into the world of "job seekers", I figured the first step is to sharpen the one, shiny implement I will shove in people's faces and jam in people's doors: my resume.

So as I sat down this weekend to put my achievements down on paper, I realized a very disconcerting conundrum. Every bullet point I had listed was something I was good not, and not necessarily something I enjoyed doing. It seemed as the list of skills I had learned and deals I had done (neither very many) came into form, the more I realized that those skills and achievements were the very things I didn't give a rat's ass about. So, if I'm ever able to leave these salt mines for something better, I would need to convince the owner of another mine (perhaps a gold mine, but still a mine nonetheless) to throw me a rope, and pull me out because I'm such a good miner. In short, the jobs I most likely will get, I most likely will dislike.

As you see, this throws a wrench into the whole thing.... argh... I'll keep you posted...

Everyone talks about an "exit strategy". Unhappily married men talk so about their wives. Venture capitalists talks so about their start ups. Me? Well, I talk so of my current situation at "the sale mines", which I've affectionately nicknamed work.

So, 5 Ws and the H... what we all learned in the 5th grade. So here we go:

1) Who: Me

2) What: Just like Hilary Clinton, I'm forming an "exploratory committee" for a new job. And also similar to Mrs Clinton, I'm announcing this news on my personal website.

3) When: I'm looking now, but ideally I'd like to quit the day after bonuses are paid out in July.

4) Where: I don't really mind moving, and I don't really have a preference. Somewhere with decent asian food would be a plus.

Ok,, so the first 4 weren't so exciting....

5) Why: now this gets interesting. Why am looking to leave? Because I don't really find what I'm doing to be all that interesting. I'm learning a lot, sure, but its in esoteric stuff that I wouldn't give a donkey's ass for, and don't really want to ever be involved with again. The money is ok, but truth be told, while the steak at Peter Luger's is good, it really doens't bring me $120 worth of satisfaction; and I think I'd be happier cooking my own $5 steak anyway. Oh yeah, I also like getting out at a decent hour, and eating dinner like normal people: at home and NOT at a desk via Seamless FUCKING WEB!

6) How: this is where it gets a little murky. I plan to start at the PennLinks site, work my way to that career services lady's e-mails, surf on through to doostang.com, maybe call up some old acquiantances, OR... perhaps this is the time to start looking at grad school/cookery school apps....

As an appreciative note to all of you who follow my ramblings, I will try my hardest to keep you abreast of my job hunting misadventures. I will try my hardest to post all meaningful events and anecdotes to this site.

Wish me luck!

"If a man is called to be a streetsweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, 'here lived a great streetsweeper who did his job well.'"
-Martin Luther King Jr.

So I'm at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square today, and I happen upon one of Mario Battali's cookbooks. This one is entitled Babbo, and features all the recipes to the dishes offered in his Greenwich Village restaurant (also named Babbo).  As I leafed through page after colorful page of pasta, herbs, cheeses, and sardines, I came to realize that this was indeed my passion: cooking.

So two questions that I haven't quite figured out yet. First, I'm good at what I do now; however, would I be a good chef?  And second, how would I do it?

Interesting article today in Newsweek about Barak Obama and Hilary Clinton "considering" to run for President in 2008. I'm interested to see what either of these candidates' positions are on social security, education, fiscal policy, et cetera. Perhaps being in a funk forces me to delve a little into today's social/political issues...

Social Security. Did you know that by 2011 (4 yrs from now), money going into social security will be LESS than the money being paid out? By 2018, we're going to have to start dipping into the humungus social security slush fund we've been building up. And sometime between 2035-2050, the slush fund is going to run out. (this is all according to Olivia Mitchell, a professor who researches social security at Penn).

By no means am I an expert, but the following is a snipet of what I've gathered:

Option 1 is to cut benefits or raise SS taxes. This makes sense: either reduce money going out of SS, or increase money coming in. Unfortunately, politically unpopular.

Option 2 is these so called "private accounts", where a portion of your SS taxes are put into your very own "lock box" at the Treasury Dept, where it is invested VERY prudently until you retire. Also politically unpopular.

Option 3 is to pretend there isn't a problem, and hence do nothing. Politically this is very popular, because nobody gets screwed over. And as you've probably guessed, this is precisely the plan we're following.

Now I don't know, but fellow classmates of 2006, it doesn't seem that there are going to be any SS checks to collect in 2049 when we all turn 65. This is troubling. In accounting terms, Social Security owes about $3 trillion to people like us over the next 75 years, and as of right now, there is no way to pay for it.

Pretty serious, until you look at Medicare. The only thing worse than the current state of social security is Medicare. Medicare, on the other hand, owes somewhere in the neighborhood of $28 trillion to people like us over the next 75 years, and has no way to pay for it.

Since I don't vote in this country, I can only HOPE that Barak, Hilary, or whoever gets elected in 2008 will actually do something about the two giant white elephants sitting in the room, twiddling their thumbs as we all pretend not to see them.